IF YOU HAVE DVD/CD DRIVE PROBLEMS - READ THIS>

[Blencogo]

Several members seem to have problems with their CD/DVD drives at the moment. As far as I know, there is no magic solution but you could try some or all of the following: -

1. See if there is an updated driver or updated firmware for your drive at Vaio-Link. Some Sony drives are re-badged from other manufacturers and you may have to search for updated downloads. For example, if you have a Sony DW-D56A drive, you can get a firmware download from HERE (Use PFS2). Many other drives are also supported on this site.

2. Use System Restore to return your Vaio to the configuration when it was last working normally.
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore - choose a restore date before you had the problem.

3. Look in Device Manager to see if there are any errors against your DVD/CD-ROM drive.
Start -> Right-Click My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager - expand DVD/CD-ROM Drives and check the status. If there is an Error Code or a yellow triangle with a ! or ? come back here with the number and we may be able to help.

4. If there is no error and the drive is reported as working normally, try Uninstalling the drive by right-clicking on it in Device Manager and choosing Uninstall. Re-booting your Vaio will reinstall the drivers.

5. Try some different software to read/write your discs and see if that works. Also try a different brand of discs - Sony, TDK and Verbatim seem favourites.

6. Try a liquid lens cleaner on the lens and polish with a microfibre cloth ? this can sometimes help.

7. If your drive works with either CDs or DVDs only make sure the ribbon cable is not preventing the reader head from moving freely - check that the laser head in the drive can move freely for the whole range of its travel. The disc information is held on the outside tracks for DVDs and the inner tracks for CDs.

8. Last resort is to perform a full C:\ Drive System Recovery from your Recovery Discs. Make sure you back up all your Data as the contents of C:\ will be lost and your Vaio returned to the factory configuration.

If none of these work, you may have a hardware problem and you need to contact Vaio-Link. There is no point contacting them until you have carried out a Drive C:\ Recovery as this is the first thing they will ask you to do.

[Blencogo]

Hi Leon,

Sony usually include some sort of DVD burning software. Have you got some sort of Roxio program in All Programs?

You don't say what model Vaio you have so I can't look it up for you. If you post your Vaio model, I'll have a look and see if you have a DVD burner included.

There are lots of good DVD burning programs but probably the most popular is NERO

[LeonB]

You're quite right, I've found Roxio on there and just giving it a whirl. It's a VGN-FE31Z btw.

I may look at Nero down the line though.

I had a quick look for my usb drive earlier as well and notice that I only have the following drives:

C:
😧
E: memory stick (thanks for showing me where it is!)
F: dvd drive

That's it. When I remove the mass storage device it refers to the G: drive. Does this mean it's not set up if I can't see it? Sorry to be asking such basic questions.

Thanks,
Leon

[Blencogo]

It sounds like your card reader is not installing properly - did it come with a disc or is it a generic XP device.

Burning to DVD is different from using CDs. With the software you have you cannot drop files one at a time from explorer onto a DVD. (In Roxio you will find the 'Drag-to-Disc' feature greyed out - you have to pay more for that!)

In Roxio Digital Home click on 'Data -> Data Disc -> Add Data' and drag the files or directories you want to back up one by one into the explorer type box. You then have to burn them all in one go!

[LeonB]

Bought it off laptops direct and it came with no cd's (other than antivirus). Instead they installed everything for me so it was ready to go from the time it arrived.

I've not tried plugging anything else into the usb ports so couldn't say if this problem is just relating to a mass storage device or more widespread.

I've checked device manager and it suggests everything is running ok. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Leon

[mike_stuart]

Hi,

I have had my

Vaio Notebook VGN-FE31Z

since October - I bought it about two days after release - and this is the second time I have had a problem with the CD/DVD drive. It is a

Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-850S

. I have tried Uninstalling and Reinstalling it, as the troubleshooter tells me, but i still have the same error message:

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

Last time, I phoned up Vaio Support, and to be fair they were extremely helpful, but unfortunately I had to completely reformat my drive, and reinstall Windows etc etc, and from then (about mid-November) until today, I had no further problems. As far as I can remember, this is exactly the same problem as then, and I am understandably unwilling to reformat everything again. Moreover, I am really unimpressed that I have had this many problems (the DVD malfunction isn't the only thing that's gone wrong) and I doubt I will buy another Vaio after this one. While the Customer Service is excellent, I feel the product should be much more reliable considering the cost and reputation of the brand.

Anyway... enough of a rant! If anyone can help, I will be extremely grateful.

Thanks,
Mike

[ulrick]

I seem to be having the same problem. I keep getting the message that there is no DVD drive installed when starting programs requesting the original CD in the drive. The DVD drive is not showing in the in "Explorer". When entering the Device Manager I see the DVD drive with a "!" and the error code 10. What can I do? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-850S ATA Device
Sony Vaio VGN-FE41S

[Blencogo]

Anyway... enough of a rant! If anyone can help, I will be extremely grateful.

Hi Mike,

If you look back through this thread you will find a simple solution to a Code 39 error.

http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/forum/viewthread?thread=39917

[kee-lo_]

You know what amazes me most? 135+ posts and 17k+ views. Isn't it time Sony made a change?

[Zavesa]

Hi!

I'm new here, but I have my laptop for about 6 months now. At first, everything was working fine, but lately my DVD RW drive started to give me headaches.

I have a VGN-FE21H with Sony DVD DW-G520A drive. The drive started to read and write very slow.

Max. read speed for CD or DVD was around 1,5 MB/s same with write speed (with buffer level jumping from 5 to 90%, using Nero).

After a couple of days searching the web, I managed to fix this "problem".

First thing I noticed was that everyone was telling ppl with similar problems to "go turn on the DMA mode on the IDE channel the drive was on" or "go update your firmware".
The problem was that no matter what I did, the drive still wasn't using the DMA mode.

Second problem was finding the darn firmware. On the Sony support, there are only MatSHITa and Pioneer FWs for my Vaio model, but it has a Sony drive (shame on you, Sony).

I finally found a firmware version GFS3 (original in my drive was GFS1) at:
ftp://ftp.vaio.sony.co.jp/pub/vaio/download/SP-011881-04/SOFOPD-01188104-UN.exe

Install is in Japanese only... Follow the same instructions that can be found on the support page.

Flashed my drive and it works fine now (DMA is on and everything, full read/write speed...).

In case anyone wants to try the same, check your drive's FW version
(you can do that with Nero Info Tool http://www.nero.com/nero6/eng/Info_Tool.html)

There are two versions, one being called GFS and the other GYS. Update with same version only (ex. GFS1 to GFS3 or GYS1 to GYS4).

You can find GYS4 here: http://download.opendrivers.com/drv/cd-rom/sony/GYS4WIN.EXE

In case you want to, you can DL this tool and backup your current firmware:
http://upload.cdfreaks.com/ftools/LtnFW.zip

DO ALL THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Hope this helps someone.

[obbie]

After a recent update of Vista, my DVD drive (QSI SDW-086)has stopped working. I have tried system restore to 2 differnet restore points prior to the update, but both times the restore has failed (unknown error during restore - very helpful!). I then tried updating the driver but Windows said the most up-to-date verion was already installed. I have then unisntalled the driver, downloaded a new driver from the VAIO website - which would not install - error = you dont have admin rights (I do!) or no device is recognised! When I lokk in device manager, the messgae is: windows cannot load the device driver for this device, the driver may be corrupted or missing (code 39).

Any advice on how to proceed would be great, as my computer is essentially useless at the moment!!

Many thanks

PS - I have a neighbour with the same model VAIO - could I copy the driver from his machine?